"I am the people s general manager"

LALOOPrasadYadav's relations with the press have been cordial, except of late. Most newspapers had written the Janata Dal off in favour of its breakaway group, the Samata Party. One local newspaper even carried a front-page report claiming, falsely, that in view of his impending defeat, Laloo was making arrangements to have his belongings shifted out of the chief minister's residence.

On the day he was sworn in as chief minister, he told reporters: "You should be gratefull sparedyourlives." Whenpressed for a comment regarding his ministry, he said: "Write whatever you want."

However, in a three-hour-long interview held over two sessions to Senior Associate Editor raj kamal jha and Eastern Bureau C/iief farzand ahmed, he shed some of his initial reluctance to touch upon issues ranging from the state's future to his image in the media. Excerpts:

Q. Looking back on your first term as chief minister, what do you feel disappointed about?

A. I have no regrets. What I had told the voters, I did. I brought about social harmony, I fought the established society. And I brought justice to the state. Yes, there were restraints on what I could do. I had to deal with communal riots and my position in the Assembly was such that there was always the threat of President's Rule. And my predecessors in government, the jewels of Bihar, saw to it that our per capita income was the lowest.

Q. Certainly, you inherited a state burdened with problems. But what did you do about solving them?

A. I shifted my emphasis to the poor and the disenfranchised. After all, the fruits of development were being enjoyed by the so-called elite, who were dishonest and had sucked the blood of the poor. So I stared raising the consciousness of the wretched and the destitute.

Q. You sowed caste hatred too. While it is true that most of those who exploited the poor were from upper castes, youpaintedeveryone with the same brush. You never spoke against the Yadavs who were exploiting the Dalits.

A. I was just trying to raise the consciousness of the poor. Is there anything wrong with that? I am not against upper caste people. They are mine, they are with me. I am against those who are treating the poor like lambs ready for slaughter, milking them and killing them. I'm talking about class, not caste.

Q. How are yougoing to convince the people that you're talking about class, not caste? Not many will believe you. During your first term, all your programmes excluded the upper caste poor.

A. During my second term, I will build pucca houses for the poor of every caste. I plan to build vocational centres for boys and girls of impoverished families all castes. There will be no discrimination. As for those who do not believe me, I can't do much about it.

Q. You must be aware that Bihar today is virtually synonymous with doom.

A. I am not a think tank, but look at what's happening in the country. The east and the north-east have been systematically ignored by the Centre. You know why? Because the radicals live here. The media is also to blame. You report on Bihar without any knowledge of its history of exploitation. If you knew what Bihar has had to go through, you would not say that the state is in ruins.

Q. Like what?

A. Take the case of university professors. There are 7,500 professors all over India and in Bihar alone, we have 8,000. How? Ask previous chief ministers. There was this case of a Ph.D. in Hindi drama who was appointed as a professor of physics. What have Nargis and Sarika to do with physics? And then you write that professors aren't being paid. How can there be development in Bihar?

Q. You got five years. Why didn't you take action? You could have dere-cognised those colleges.

A. Everything will happen when the time comes. We have already changed the retirement age from 62 to 60. As a result, there were 2,000 vacancies and we will be filling them up soon. I have done all this and yet people say Laloo is a joker and he should be more reserved. What reserved? Those who are reserved often die of a heart attack. I like being open.

Q. Some say you have cleverly used your "openness" to make yourself more popular.

A. People say many things. They say Idon'tknow English. Well, howcan I be expected to know English? I am a cattle grazer. Is learning English so easy? Is it like an injection?

I talk in this manner to the millions so that they know who I am. That's a part of bringing the poor into society's mainstream. And people should know that I am not a landlord's son, I am just their general manager.

Q. You have declared grandiose plans for the poor-houses, clothes, vocational centres and so on. Given the state's empty coffers, how do you plan to get the resources?

A. The Centre has blocked all our attempts to raise revenue. We have 81 coal mines that are sick and dying. I asked for permission to run them. That hasn't been cleared yet. After the Supreme Court directed that we have no power to charge coal cess, I told the Centre to fix the royalty rate ad valorem. They slit our throats and based it on tonnage. The result is a Rs 275 crore deficit. Bihar is rich but the Centre is the owner of all my wealth.

Then, they scrapped the entry tax which we slapped on truckers instead of the octroi. We lost another Rs 3 5 crore.

Q. So how do you plan to raise resources?

A. We have Rs 3 00 crore in the Consolidated Fund. We are working out a system of assessment of property tax and that will raise some revenue. And I am going to meet the prime minister and urge him to remove some of the bottlenecks that are hampering the flow of money into the state.

Q. You have given a sense of security to the Dalits but you haven't created or encouraged any institutions to empower them. You haven't held pan-chayat elections and your record on land reforms is one of the worst in the country.

A. According to the Act passed by the legislature, we will hold panchayat elections soon and that will be a radical redistribution of power. We will have 3 3 per cent reservation for women of all castes. And we will create corresponding administrative units at the block and district levels.

As for land reforms, there's not much I can do. Rich landlords and landowners have trapped huge tracts of land in court cases. I will ask the Centre to take over all the agricultural land and redistribute it.

0. How do you respond to charges that you are a goodpolitician but a bad administrator?

A. Ask my bureaucrats. They will tell you what kind of boss Laloo Yadav is. As for administration, I don't need any advisers. I canllo everything on my own. I take swift decisions. I don't even consult the Cabinet.

Q. What about the principles of collective responsibility?

A. What collective responsibility? Ministers are only meant to keep you informed as to what is happening in their areas.

Q. Some people say you have an understanding with Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao in view of the 1996 Lok Sabha elections.

A. Is there any thinking man in the Congress(I)? Please tell me.

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